RUDN graduate student Oksana Ashirova created a project that helps people get acquainted with universities

Oksana Ashirova is a graduate student and lecturer at the Faculty of Economics of RUDN University. Ten years ago, she came to Moscow to choose a university for enrollment — and encountered a number of difficulties. It was far from always clear with whom and how to consult about admission, is it possible to come and see the campus, learn about the programs, feel the atmosphere of the educational institution. After all, former school students, when choosing an educational institution, think not only about their future career but also about how they will live in the coming years, in what environment, how they will study, how they will spend their leisure time, and whether it will be easy to socialize in the new setting. Therefore, Oksana Ashirova created the project «Povuzam», which is now helping thousands of students get on excursions to universities they have just started to consider or already dream of.

“Make universities open”

Ten years ago Oksana Ashirova She came to Moscow from Udmurtia with her grandmother to choose a university for admission. She was 16 years old. And as a winner of one of the “list” Olympiads, she considered higher education institutions in Moscow, Kazan, and St. Petersburg. But it was not possible to get admission advice everywhere. For example, the security of one of the leading universities in the capital simply turned the applicant away at the entrance: “Get a student ID — then come back.”

“We stood at the doors behind which my fate could have been, and we couldn’t even enter. It really stuck in my heart,” he recalls Oksana Ashirova.

It was received completely differently at the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia. According to Oksana, here the atmosphere of hospitality and friendliness was felt immediately. As a result, she decided to enroll specifically at RUDN — and has already completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees and entered postgraduate studies. But right at the beginning of her journey, Oksana Ashirova became passionate about making universities as open as possible to schoolchildren. This gave rise to the project “Povuzam.”

“To put it briefly, the girl who was not admitted to the university is now opening the doors of universities for thousands of schoolchildren,” she said.

To verify whether her idea was needed, the graduate student conducted a study. More than 2,000 schoolchildren from all regions of Russia participated. The results showed that over 60% of high school students do not know which profession and university to choose by the end of 11th grade. According to the Ministry of Education and Science and HSE, this percentage reaches 80%.

“The kids don’t know about specializations, universities, or even where to aim. We address this problem in advance—starting from grades 7–8 we show the full variety of educational institutions: colleges, universities, and also introduce them to employing companies,” explains the founder of the project.

Within the framework of the project of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation “Women: Mentoring School,” the deputy head of the Ministry of Education and Science became the mentor of Oksana and her startup. Olga Petrova.

“I brought her the first idea literally on a napkin — writing down variations of what we could implement. Olga Viktorovna supported the idea of tours and excursions to universities for high school students,” she says Oksana.

By the next meeting, Oksana’s team had developed an MVP (basic version) of the website and launched it. Among the project’s first partners were RUDN University, Bauman Moscow State Technical University, MEPhI, the Higher School of Economics, and Perm Polytechnic.

“Almost three years have passed. We have 86 partner universities in 17 regions, more than 5,000 schoolchildren have used the service,” she said project founder.

How “Povuzam” Works

The service allows a student to access the website, choose the university they are interested in, date and time of visit — and sign up for a tour. This is an in-person interactive visit: the student is welcomed by university representatives, shown classrooms, laboratories, libraries, and gyms. A mandatory part is a master class or lecture (for example, making a filling from polymer clay at the Russian National Medical University named after Pirogov, experiments with freezing a rose in nitrogen at RUDN, a language master class at MGIMO). The visit concludes with a meeting with a representative of the admissions office, who explains how to enter the university on a budget or target places, based on olympiad results, or how to get a tuition discount.

“We are often compared to open house days (OHD). But OHD lasts two to three days a year. We work 365 days a year and pay attention to every student,” emphasizes Oksana.

For schools and parents, the service offers educational tours in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Kazan, Novosibirsk — including accommodation, meals, and transfers. Schools can order career guidance packages: for example, medical classes visit specialized medical universities among the project’s participants and employer companies.

Oksana told several stories about applicants who used the service. First — about a high school senior from Perm. He was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to cope with a Moscow university.

“The school paid for his trip so that the student could just look around. The guy went, walked around the campuses, talked to students, and came back a different person. It turned out that he was not just ‘keeping up’ — he is one of the strongest guys, which we have seen. When a school invests in a child not with grades, but with the opportunity to see the world — it changes the trajectory,” — believes Oksana.

Second The story is about the mother of a university applicant from Voronezh, who wrote after the tour: “What have you done to my daughter? She sat down to prepare for exams, and there is no more arguing in the family about grades.” The head of ‘Povuzam’ notes: the girl simply realized for the first time why she is studying. Not for the grade in the diary, but for a specific university and a specific profession. When there is a goal, grades cease to be a reason for conflicts.

“And finally, third story — where the parents sent the boy each in different directions: the father towards economics, the mother towards education. But he wanted something completely different. The older brother sent the child to us — for university selection. After the tours, he was able to explain to his parents what he really wanted and why it was not a whim, but a conscious choice. Now the guy studies and works in the admissions office of his university. That is, the person not only chose a profession but is already helping others choose. This is why we work,” he says startup leader.

The “Powuzam” team, in addition to Oksana, also includes a co-founder Vitaliy Sorokin, a graduate of the Faculty of Economics of RUDN. They started developing the project together three years ago. The team also includes people from other universities: for example, Moscow State University, the Higher School of Economics, and N. I. Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod.

“We assembled the team both by competencies and by enthusiasm. Creating a new service for educational, scientific, and school tourism in Russia is not easy: business trips to various regions, constant creativity, and discipline — because we work with children, and this imposes special responsibility. We are always in need of new people and are looking forward to new professionals. So we are open to students who want to do an internship, traineeship, or work fully in the team with us. We will be glad,” says Oksana.

“The ability to launch throughout Russia is important”

Since 2026, “Povuzam” has been developing career guidance excursions together with JSC “Prosveshcheniye Publishing House.” The partnership began with a chance meeting at a conference in Nizhny Novgorod and grew into joint work on developing school and career guidance tourism in Saint Petersburg, Bashkortostan, and Udmurtia.

In 2026, Oksana’s project also won the Student Startup Challenge accelerator, receiving 1 million rubles. Among the competitors were strong teams with projects for creating a gynecological startup, a smart pillbox, and a deepfake detector.

“In startups, a super-technology is not always important. What matters is the possibility of scaling and launching across all of Russia. We were the only participants in the accelerator already represented in 17 regions of the country, and our major task is to achieve presence in all 89 regions,” she explained Oksana.

The startup also received an investment round of 10 million rubles from Ilya Chekh’s “Science Frontiers” fund.

“From the latest news: we are actively connecting new universities — more than seven new ones have already joined. And together with the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI), we are launching the first regional special portals in Russia “Study and Work in the Region.” Three special portals are already in the release stage: for the Udmurt Republic, the Nizhny Novgorod region, and Saint Petersburg. These are the first portals in the country where you can book excursions directly to universities, colleges, and employer companies — it will become accessible for schoolchildren to visit them not only in their own region but also in neighboring ones,” she shared Oksana Ashirova.